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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2016 16:16:54 GMT -5
Could be. The wikipedia page doesn't really give a exact explanation as to why other than that his process is unorthodox to a degree. According to Charest, the time he needs to finish a given page varies, depending on how fast his editor needs it, and what he is being paid,[14] though because he came to prefer producing artwork that takes longer than the norm to complete by the time he left Wildstorm, he no longer finds it feasible to be the regular artist on a monthly series.[15] He points to WildC.A.T.s/X-Men: The Golden Age as an example of a book that took him considerable time (under a year), though he stresses that he finished it on time.It's all about the work ethic for artists. I think most of the professionals of the past produced a page a day. I remember reading that some of the artists of the 90's wasted most of their days playing video games instead of hitting that drawing board. Joe Mediarera of Battle Chasers was one of those dudes. It's a lot easier to produce a page a day when 80% of the panels on the page are two figures with zero background except empty space, compared to the fully detailed backgrounds that are expected these days. A lot of the work produced then wouldn't pass muster in the eyes of today's consumer. The trend for less wordy comics means the art has to a) do a lot more of the storytelling work and b)fill up more space and not leave as much empty space for lettering. Not saying one is better than the other, but expectations are vastly different and the level of detail expected is different. For every Ultra-detailed artist form the Bronze Age or earlier like George PErez, there were a dozen whose idea of backgrounds were empty spaces to be filled by the letterer or colorist. Here... 2 panels out of 6 have a background...  as opposed to something like this with fewer panels, but still way more actual drawing done...  so yeah, Don Heck could produce pages far faster than Greg Capullo. Both are fine examples of comic art, but the level of details expected in today's comics makes it much harder to do a page a day or faster. -M |
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Post by Icctrombone on May 19, 2016 17:08:49 GMT -5
mrp, you stacked the deck a little in your example. You picked a Kirby page that was produced probably at the time he was drawing over 4 books a month for Marvel. Take a look at the detail of these pages:   But Kirby is probably a bad example as he was one of the fastest in the business. Back before the 90's, artists supported their families and knew that they couldn't slack off on production as the younger artists of today seem to do. |
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2016 17:23:02 GMT -5
That second Kirby page has half the panels with no backgrounds still. Kirby did some amazingly detailed stuff, but there were panels also that were just figures in the foreground with no hint of background. That's not a bad thing per se, and it was acceptable at the time, but it would not be accepted by either an editor or a consumer today. The expectations are different now than then, and in some ways it speaks to why guys don't get work-they don't produce the type of work that is currently in vogue with what editors think the fanbase wanted. Yes you had guys like BWS producing pages like this....  in the 70s and he was a slow guy... but you had speed demons like John Buscema producing more pages...still good, but far less detailed with bacgrounds and such...  What was acceptable then wouldn't necessarily be acceptable by today's standards, regardles sof the quality of the work or whether you agree with today's standards or not. -M |
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Post by tolworthy on May 19, 2016 18:07:37 GMT -5
as opposed to something like this with fewer panels, but still way more actual drawing done... The batman pic is certainly nice. But since the topic is quantity rather than quality...  The Kirby page showed 18 character pictures, and every one was drawn, and most with wildly different poses. But the Batman page has an awful lot of photoshop cloning going on. (At least two images that are basically photocopies. Most of the big panel could be replaced by stock images of bats and buildings: in the days of digital, reusing or cloning old elements is normal. Even the main Batman pose is suspiciously generic, the kind of thing that could be reused and tweaked multiple times. The one panel that looks definitely original has a lot of white space and the perspective of those lines is horrible, but nobody's perfect.) A lot of detail in modern comics is from photo referencing. But why? I love Alex Ross's work as much as the next guy, especially his choice of composition and expression. But if I want photos I have a camera. I want art that tells a story. There is three times as much story in that Kirby page than in the Batman page, and that is how I measure drawing. |
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Post by spoon on May 19, 2016 19:46:33 GMT -5
I think trends and aging also play a role.
Certain styles of art may be more popular at different times, so artists who don't go with the current trends (aping certain hot artists) might suffer.
Although I'm not an artist, it seems to mean the physical aspects of drawing can be underestimated. Experience may enhance art as a career progresses, but physical limitations can work in the opposite direction. For me, many artists do better work at the midpoint of their career (or even earlier) than in the latter half. And the spontaneity of youth could outweigh the impact of experience on creativity with some artists.
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2016 20:01:19 GMT -5
as opposed to something like this with fewer panels, but still way more actual drawing done... The batman pic is certainly nice. But since the topic is quantity rather than quality... The Kirby page showed 18 character pictures, and every one was drawn, and most with wildly different poses. But the Batman page has an awful lot of photoshop cloning going on. (At least two images that are basically photocopies. Most of the big panel could be replaced by stock images of bats and buildings: in the days of digital, reusing or cloning old elements is normal. Even the main Batman pose is suspiciously generic, the kind of thing that could be reused and tweaked multiple times. The one panel that looks definitely original has a lot of white space and the perspective of those lines is horrible, but nobody's perfect.) A lot of detail in modern comics is from photo referencing. But why? I love Alex Ross's work as much as the next guy, especially his choice of composition and expression. But if I want photos I have a camera. I want art that tells a story. There is three times as much story in that Kirby page than in the Batman page, and that is how I measure drawing. Just going to say a few words about Capullo, his rep is as a workaholic. His art is done on artboard, not digitally, so while photoshop and photocopies could be used, it all is then drawn by hand by him, even if it is lightboxed. He has drawn a model of his and Snyder's version of Gotham and all cityscapes are based on that model-not stock footage, but consistent reference he uses throughout his Batman run. I love Kirby, he's one of my all time favorites, but Jack did take shortcuts here and there to churn out the number of pages he did-that's not a knock on him it's just the way it was when he was asked to produce so much each month, and I don't feel the need to disparage modern artists to make Kirby look better. Jack did a lot of collage work, if photoshop were available to him when he was working, I don't doubt he would use it to achieve some of those outrageous effects he achieved through collage and/or decoupage. The tools and methods available to comic artists have evolved as technology and the product itself has, and customer expectations have changed with time as well. You don't see many guys doing just breakdowns with inkers doing the bulk of the work as finishers, artists have to deal with full scripts, often form writers who don't think visually and who ask for a lot more in each panel than can sometimes be done. They can't stretch a fight scene to fill 4-5 pages based on a plot summary, they have to work with what's given to them and do what's asked of them by editors and writers. Not saying one is better than the other, but the kind of work a lot (not all) of artists turned in to meet those page a day deadlines would not fly these days, and there's no drawer full of inventory stories or reprints in cheque to put in an issue when deadlines are missed these days to keep the monthly schedule when the Dreaded Deadline Doom got the better of those supposedly faster artists back in the day. Books have recap pages now too, so artists can't just redraw (or re-purpose) what they did the previous issues for 2-3 pages of recap/flashback before diving into the new story as was common throughout the Bronze Age. Heck, books were even as short as 17 pages at Marvel in the Bronze Age, and DC often had back up features in books so artists on the main story had to produce fewer pages to make deadlines, and still fill ins, inventory stories and reprints happened with alarming regularity. The past looks so good through those rose tinted glasses, but the reality was a little different than those lenses make it look. -M |
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Post by Nowhere Man on May 20, 2016 1:48:08 GMT -5
Just wanted to chime back in and say that I was grumpy the other day and shot my mouth off about the editorial profession and seemingly crapped on it. That wasn't my intention. I meant to focus solely on the bad ones. There are some great editors out there and I realize that when you're an editor in charge of a character or character line, you occasionally have to protect said character from crazy creators. I also realize that many great novelists needed editors to make their work presentable and sometimes even readable. I felt the need to clarify because I get irritated when people ignorantly badmouth and generalize entire professions (from teachers to policemen). I'm simply not that kind of person.
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Post by tingramretro on May 20, 2016 6:39:22 GMT -5
Just wanted to chime back in and say that I was grumpy the other day and shot my mouth off about the editorial profession and seemingly crapped on it. That wasn't my intention. I meant to focus solely on the bad ones. There are some great editors out there and I realize that when you're an editor in charge of a character or character line, you occasionally have to protect said character from crazy creators. I also realize that many great novelists needed editors to make their work presentable and sometimes even readable. I felt the need to clarify because I get irritated when people ignorantly badmouth and generalize entire professions (from teachers to policemen). I'm simply not that kind of person. Thanks for that, Robert. |
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Post by Icctrombone on May 20, 2016 7:01:27 GMT -5
Just wanted to chime back in and say that I was grumpy the other day and shot my mouth off about the editorial profession and seemingly crapped on it. That wasn't my intention. I meant to focus solely on the bad ones. There are some great editors out there and I realize that when you're an editor in charge of a character or character line, you occasionally have to protect said character from crazy creators. I also realize that many great novelists needed editors to make their work presentable and sometimes even readable. I felt the need to clarify because I get irritated when people ignorantly badmouth and generalize entire professions (from teachers to policemen). I'm simply not that kind of person. I think we all gave you the benefit of the doubt. You are correct about some bad editors, which seem to have been part of the comic biz since around the 90's. But a true editor will give their best to get the best product they can. Makes me wonder about creator owned properties. If no one is there to tell you your idea is bad, are we getting a lesser type of story? |
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Post by tolworthy on May 20, 2016 9:13:00 GMT -5
Just wanted to chime back in and say that I was grumpy the other day and shot my mouth off about the editorial profession and seemingly crapped on it. That wasn't my intention. I meant to focus solely on the bad ones. There are some great editors out there and I realize that when you're an editor in charge of a character or character line, you occasionally have to protect said character from crazy creators. I also realize that many great novelists needed editors to make their work presentable and sometimes even readable. I felt the need to clarify because I get irritated when people ignorantly badmouth and generalize entire professions (from teachers to policemen). I'm simply not that kind of person. I think we all gave you the benefit of the doubt. You are correct about some bad editors, which seem to have been part of the comic biz since around the 90's. But a true editor will give their best to get the best product they can. Makes me wonder about creator owned properties. If no one is there to tell you your idea is bad, are we getting a lesser type of story? And as usual I read it completely the wrong way. The Unconquered one wrote "glorified proof readers". My habit is to treat the best comics like a religious text, so to me "glorified proof reader" can be a good thing. As others have said, a good editor works invisibly to bring out divine qualities of the writer that would otherwise be invisible. Which just goes to show that communication is hard. |
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Post by Icctrombone on May 20, 2016 9:21:11 GMT -5
Usually the word "glorified" is a put down.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 20, 2016 9:24:22 GMT -5
It's all about the work ethic for artists. I think most of the professionals of the past produced a page a day. I remember reading that some of the artists of the 90's wasted most of their days playing video games instead of hitting that drawing board. Joe Mediarera of Battle Chasers was one of those dudes. It's a lot easier to produce a page a day when 80% of the panels on the page are two figures with zero background except empty space, compared to the fully detailed backgrounds that are expected these days. A lot of the work produced then wouldn't pass muster in the eyes of today's consumer. The trend for less wordy comics means the art has to a) do a lot more of the storytelling work and b)fill up more space and not leave as much empty space for lettering. Not saying one is better than the other, but expectations are vastly different and the level of detail expected is different. For every Ultra-detailed artist form the Bronze Age or earlier like George PErez, there were a dozen whose idea of backgrounds were empty spaces to be filled by the letterer or colorist. Here... 2 panels out of 6 have a background... -M Just my opinion but I feel that this is a great page. It draws the eye to action and doesn't clutter it up with needless machinery or objects. Panel 2 and 6 are great storytelling in that it starts and ends the context. Panel 3 is fantastic in the way Cap bypasses Iron man and Thor to take on the biggest opponent. Just a great page. |
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Post by tolworthy on May 20, 2016 9:42:22 GMT -5
Usually the word "glorified" is a put down. Clearly you do not read enough New Testament Greek.  |
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Post by tingramretro on May 20, 2016 10:03:58 GMT -5
It's a lot easier to produce a page a day when 80% of the panels on the page are two figures with zero background except empty space, compared to the fully detailed backgrounds that are expected these days. A lot of the work produced then wouldn't pass muster in the eyes of today's consumer. The trend for less wordy comics means the art has to a) do a lot more of the storytelling work and b)fill up more space and not leave as much empty space for lettering. Not saying one is better than the other, but expectations are vastly different and the level of detail expected is different. For every Ultra-detailed artist form the Bronze Age or earlier like George PErez, there were a dozen whose idea of backgrounds were empty spaces to be filled by the letterer or colorist. Here... 2 panels out of 6 have a background... -M Just my opinion but I feel that this is a great page. It draws the eye to action and doesn't clutter it up with needless machinery or objects. Panel 2 and 6 are great storytelling in that it starts and ends the context. Panel 3 is fantastic in the way Cap bypasses Iron man and Thor to take on the biggest opponent. Just a great page. I agree. I'd far rather read a page with art like that that some of the stuff around today, which I often consider messy, muddy and confusing. |
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2016 10:26:08 GMT -5
It's a lot easier to produce a page a day when 80% of the panels on the page are two figures with zero background except empty space, compared to the fully detailed backgrounds that are expected these days. A lot of the work produced then wouldn't pass muster in the eyes of today's consumer. The trend for less wordy comics means the art has to a) do a lot more of the storytelling work and b)fill up more space and not leave as much empty space for lettering. Not saying one is better than the other, but expectations are vastly different and the level of detail expected is different. For every Ultra-detailed artist form the Bronze Age or earlier like George PErez, there were a dozen whose idea of backgrounds were empty spaces to be filled by the letterer or colorist. Here... 2 panels out of 6 have a background... -M Just my opinion but I feel that this is a great page. It draws the eye to action and doesn't clutter it up with needless machinery or objects. Panel 2 and 6 are great storytelling in that it starts and ends the context. Panel 3 is fantastic in the way Cap bypasses Iron man and Thor to take on the biggest opponent. Just a great page. Just my opinion but I feel that this is a great page. It draws the eye to action and doesn't clutter it up with needless machinery or objects. Panel 2 and 6 are great storytelling in that it starts and ends the context. Panel 3 is fantastic in the way Cap bypasses Iron man and Thor to take on the biggest opponent. Just a great page. I agree. I'd far rather read a page with art like that that some of the stuff around today, which I often consider messy, muddy and confusing. I never said it was a bad page, just one that used a lot of blank space and was therefore quicker to complete. And as for what you prefer, well folks, we're older than the target demographics of most entertainment companies these days and our tastes are often out of step with what sells in the contemporary market, so our preferences really don't shape what the marketplace is anymore, and when they are different than what the target demographic prefers, that demo will win out-just like our preferences once trumped those who came before us. Time marches on and we are on the wrong side of it as far as determining the marketplace now. -M |
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The Kirby page showed 18 character pictures, and every one was drawn, and most with wildly different poses. But the Batman page has an awful lot of photoshop cloning going on. 
